Selfish Love

2 years, 8 months ago

• Animals are not selfish, because they are not aware of themselves. They are, in fact, selfless, for they are only conscious of outward sensation, and whether it is rewarding or punishing them by pleasure or pain, which then seems selfish, but they’re only aware of the external effects and their reactions to them. They have no deep inner feeling, because that would require a deep inner movement to which they have never practiced – they cannot think. They make no decisions, because they are beings of pure reaction (instinct and fear) and adaption (memory and experience); they act depending on how the world acts on them, as nature. If they were to recognize themselves, they would be able to reflect on their experiences and put aside their instincts and fears. They would, for the first time, be able to think, to decide, to prepare an action, rather than to act simply out of fearful reaction. They would eventually, through this presumption, be more than independent, which is simply a negation of ‘dependent’, but would make nature dependent upon them, only if they kept preparing and progressing though. Cause and effect, which used to coincide with nature and adaption, is now reflected into reason and action, mind and nature. It was reflection that made Man who he is, or, rather, who he is supposed to be: master of the entire universe. • When two selfless souls unite, as is considered non-individual or pro-communal, the conclusive equation equals out to nothing between them both and thus onto the answer. One selfless soul negates itself (negating its soul) and gives itself the value of zero, for all values are granted by our selves. Two souls with this value of zero in union amount to… zero! In becoming selfless and spreading such a morality, you are spreading the cancer of emptiness within all that has the potential to live at its fullest; you are negating Existence as a whole for the whole. Sure you really exist, but you do not value yourself, and therefore you do not value Existence; it ceases to be to you, as you are also capable of devaluing and denying, so you have incapacitated your ability to truly live. By considering it selfless to also take the souls of others like yourself (through your morality’s crave for dominance – the laying down of your own), you spread your cancer and help fashion a world of negation, of denying Existence, the Truth, and reality altogether. • One is always seen as either selfish or selfless: if one is non-individual, he is pro-communal; if other is non-communal, he is pro-individual: it always seems to be one or the other. But what is the use of negation? What is the use of lessening something? What is the use of obliteration? Why can’t someone be both: pro-communal and pro-individual. At first there is a contradiction, not between community and the individual (for, i.e. an individual is part of the community), but between the associated terms ‘selfish’ and ‘selfless’. You cannot be without yourself and with yourself at the same time, it is impossible. Let’s look at the big picture: which one is exclusive? The one that adds or the one that subtracts? The positive or the negative? The position or the negation? It is not exclusive to include something – that thing being the position of the self; but the denial of something is always exclusive, because it expels, leaving nothing left – it only destroys, and does not even reposition itself. To be selfless is to deny the self, the individual, the soul. Selflessness is the antithesis of selfishness and nothing more; its fault is in the fact that it only speaks of wrongs and not of right. In the end, all selfless moralities only deny and destroy, scolding rights the whole way to their belov’ed nonentity. It should be clear now that a reanalysis of the self is required to understand the True worth and reason for community and the individual (does Socrates’ oracle ring a bell?). • What then is found within as a feeling and passion that drive us to be “selfless”, or, rather, noble and unified?? Love! Love is that which comes from within the self and manifests in the genuine union of selves: it is when two selfish souls unite that the True community is founded. When carried on to and through universality, an ideal community of ideal individuals will evolve out of every soul to actual reality, becoming one soul, one self. Can you see now that it’s not selflessness that makes genuine harmony, but universal selfishness? • True love is not a willingness to sacrifice yourself for another, but to be not merely for yourself. Notice it is not to end you, replacing the emptiness with others, but to add them to you. Love is an additive effect, not a negative struggle: you value yourself and others. How can you truly love a self when you can’t even truly love your own self? A sacrifice in that case would be to save them from lowering their standards to you – a sacrifice you’re damned by your morality to make. In the end, you will be unlovable and unloving. Feelings and passions are based in your soul, but in divorcing yourself from it, you will lose all feeling and passion; you are then in the perfect place to become a Buddhist or Taoist, emptily and pointlessly toiling away at simple life – good as nothing, good for nothing, awaiting the peace of death. If you kept to feeling as important like a Christian, then you are lying to yourself about love: you “love” everything and everyone on impulse, but never really stop doubting it all, for your feelings want to manifest themselves for real, instead of just in theory; your blind love, ushered in like blind faith, to which you also pledge allegiance, is never True enough to satisfy, so you sin without end, anger and resentment building up inside to all those people you “love” who don’t act like it (quite frankly, because they don’t love you; but it’s important to the completion of True Love that it’s reflected into both). They love without reason, and like anything without reason, it doesn’t end well. Love is the Ultimate Reason, but they don’t treat it as such, so it’s thrown about without appropriate use like a phone to cavemen or newspaper to a hobo, attaining new meanings and definitions along the way by arbitrary circumstances – all falsifying the purposed Reason. As for its ultimatum, the consequence for the wrongful use of love will mirror the oppositely positive accomplishment of using it correctly – leading it to Perfect Good: it will, on the contrary, lead to the perfect evil.

@sapienite, I agree with a lot of what you say but this is a very confusing thought process to have on your mind, good to get it out. You talk about fish being selfish or selfless, but you said it yourself, fish are incapable of conceptual thought and so a fish is incapable of being selfish or selfless. There is a thing called ego, it is basically life. This is self preservation: food, fight/flight and then there is reproduction: perpetuation of the species. This is factors, in fish, of both selfish and selfless, as we would define them, but this is an inappropriate way to connotate, at that level there is no right or wrong, no good or bad, no morality or sin, it is simply the Yin/Yang universe at work, the purpose that drives. Nothing exists without a purpose and everything fulfills the purpose it exists for. In that system you have constructive relationships and destructive forces, neither deserve the connotation of good or bad etc, it is not like we only need one and should get rid of the other, both are vital functions of existence. The thing is that as constructive beings, we are the result of billions of years of constructive relationships between people, animals, life in general, atoms, energy and beyond to the quantum. As an atom is a constructive relationship of energy, life of atom, etc. So as constructive beings our interest is in the protection and liberation of constructive relationships, logically. The threat to these relationships is destructive forces, but as I said, the destructive forces are equally as vital to existence as the constructive, so we just can’t be rid of them. Instead we focus the destructive toward the appropriate purpose, we benefit from this effect and we minimize collateral damage with the control. Just like an explosion in demolision, the process was chaotic but over time we controlled it and the process is much more safe, localized and effective. That is the fundamentals of cause and effect and our role in it, our duty. We do all this by the appropriate focus of another destructive force, concept. This is unique to humans and is the most powerful tool at our disposal, it is also the most dangerous. We are not concept, as I have said about all the constructive relationships that have existed for billions of years, all this was before the first concept ever was concieved, we are those billions of years of purpose, of always fulfilling exactly what we existed for. Concept is just a tool that we can use to understand everything and to use for enhancing all that natural purpose and quality that we really are, concept is for protecting and liberating the constructive and focusing the destructive. I agree that selfishness is primary, to become a better rounded individual we do the best we can at what we are good at and with the surplus we buy help for that which we are not good at, but require. This whole selfish principle of becoming a well rounded individual is what society works on, each of us produce where we can and we buy help for where we can’t do ourselves. This, in theory, is how everyone is supposed to have the opportunity to become a well rounded individual. Helping people also has a selfish benefit, so you cannot dismiss it as negation. By helping others they are more willing to allow your life to be smoother, they could even help you back. But also you get the benefit of a good conscience, that you have done nice things you will like yourself as a person more, adding to you becoming a well rounded individual. Just remember, nothing exists without purpose. Just because you may see something as being counterproductive, does not mean it is wrong, out of place and needs to go, it just means that it is being used incorrectly.

It’s about damn time someone posted a thread like this. I’m glad you figured this out, unlike most people.

The crazy “selfless” ideal people talk about has nothing to do with love, only fear. And the only place it leads is to a society that’s like an ant hill.

Humans are not ants, we are individuals. The self is the soul, to reject the self is to reject the soul.

Remember that humans created the system, to act as a tool for the humans, the individuals. Not the other way around. The moment society starts compromising individual integrity, is the moment the individuals have to push society back a bit and re-adapt it.

The only truly selfless people are the slaves and the lobotomised.

We’re humans, not robots, not bees. We are individuals, that’s what separates us from the animals.

True individualism is the only way forward. Functional unity that leads to joy and prosperity can only be found when people stop trying to control eachother, stop trying to impose their rules and morals on eachother, stop trying to be the same.

The moment you sacrifice your individuality is the moment you sell your soul and become unworthy of the human experience.

1) What I mean by saying animals are not selfish is that them, not being self-conscious, are not aware of themselves, and are therefore also incapable of proactivity; they are REactive beings, so they act to preserve themselves by perceptive pain, which has them fly away in fear, and by perceptive pleasure, which rewards them for a job well done. To FIGHT, however, requires much more activity: to run away is a clear reaction, but predators are cunning, they must CHOOSE to act. That is why predators are much more intelligent, and we ourselves were descended from them. Animals are everyday becoming more intelligent; they’re evolving from sentience into Sapience – but because we have already attained it, many animals are domesticated or made aware of us, thus remaining as adaptive and not GOVERNING beings. 2) I never meant to imply that animals were not self-preservative. One of my main points was actually that exactly. They are selfless because they have not even gained the concept of “self”, which they can’t until they become self-conscious, reflective beings, which would make them Sapient. Selfishness in my regard has to do with Sapience; it has to do with the Individual declaring him/herself as standard, which ought to be, right after becoming a self-reflective, the naturally rational thing to do. The difference between self-preservation and selfishness is my point in much of this: Reason and Passion are Human qualities (creative rationality); merely sentient beings don’t have these, because they require reflection. 3) On the contrary to stoic amorality, the right or wrong of something depends on the standard of a living individual. Clearly, it is good (good for THEM, that is) that they continue to live, or remain conscious. Consequently, it is bad to die or to be unconscious. Man, through his rational creativity, can reverse the role of nature and himself: he can become master of the universe. This does not mean that he “smites” nature or destroys it, but that he USES it for his benefit, for his own Good. Therefore, it is Right to profess existence and wrong to profess nothingness. The Taoist amorality only works for the continued enslavement of Man to nature, but he is no longer an animal, he must rise up and take hold of the reigns. He must reroute those destructive forces into benevolent ones. It is in this way that Man reaches the Brahma, and the Beautiful Order is Truly made. 4) Destructive forces are NOT vital to existence. In fact, there is no notion of “destruction” without life, and lives can be destroyed, unlike plain matter. This world is not “destructive” without us, it becomes destructive as we receive it as such. It is, like pain, our first hint to change our ways. As Men now, and not just reactive animals, we must extend ourselves to govern nature through nature. Through denying that we have power to govern nature, we are denying the nature within ourselves. You ought to call that your inner Tao, and realize there’s an antithesis between the Universal and Individual that ought not be there (demolitions, may i add to your example, are man-made). 4) We were still Men at the tribal stage when we didn’t have macroeconomies, currencies, or divisions of labor. We sustained ourselves the best ways we could, directly, not alienated from that labor. It is when we desired MORE that we needed economies to develop products and services with separate trades. We become “well-rounded Individuals” when our Souls are at Peace, when we no longer contradict our Mind with our Spirit, our consciousness with our self. It is Love that brings out the best of our whole Soul: Passionate Reason. This doesn’t require an economy, just an interaction of two or more individuals. But on this basis would rise the most Genuine and Perfect Nation. 5) Your use of “purpose” instead of ’cause’ makes you assume that every cause was intentional, or, in other words, that fate has done with everything the best it could (you’re a stoic). In reality, you don’t understand causation, nor do you understand the power that Man has to create causes and effects of his own (causes with his thought, effects with his actions). In valuing his life, he will naturally disvalue all that may destroy it – so those things that would destroy it are BAD. Clearly you have not witnessed the things that Man has produced HIMSELF. If you did, you would have to realize that he did so with his own intent, and not by the thoughtless effect of fate; if fate had its way, and nobody chose to act, then there would be no skyscrapers or spaceships. But because there are now, IN FACT, skyscrapers and spaceships, clearly someone had acted freely. Fate is just the world before Man Wills it.

@sapienite, Good points, but as you must have missed, connotations of good and bad are conceptual. I never said destruction was bad before we defined it as such. Destruction is nessecary because nothing would exist without it, you need destruction to stop destruction. Consider cancer, it is actually a growth, so a constructive relationship, but it results in the death of the host. Destroying this constructive relationship results in life of the host, destruction permits preservation. I think you see the world as black and white, you do not see the cross overs of benefit between those two fundamental aspects of the universe, the Yin/Yang, again no connotation there so Yin and Yang is a far more appropriate way to define constructive and destructive. Yes these words are conceptually designed as description, they we add negative and possitive connotation to it, also conceptual. “Fate is the world before man wills it” absolutely agree. You have presumed that I do not believe man has will, you are wrong, I have seen it. A typical person is conditioned by experience and cultural guidance on how to interpret all cause and effect, but when a person realizes that conditioning they are then in a possition to disolve it and then they can respond, through their discipline, any way they wish to focus, completely free of influence and conditioning. This itself differs from conditioning because conditioning can only focus one way, discipline of disolved attachment creates the spectrum across any of 100% of possible response, or none at all. Concepts have no inherent value beyond enhancing our purpose of existence and that purpose is, as I said, to protect and liberate constructive relationships and to focus destructive forces in the manner most appropriate. As I said about the cancer example, this is only one of potentially infinte situations where the destructive can preserve for benefit. The demolishion example is human, but this is another example of how destructive can preserve because it removes that which is un-needed and makes way for something useful. The demolishion example also shows you that the human can, as you said, be the initiating factor of effect and be “Master of the Universe” so to speak, but the examples of destruction being vital for existence are not only human, they are in the “Fate” universe that existed before the will of man. I really don’t see this as an arguement, we are just making different points about the same thing.

Just because untouched nature does benefit to men at times doesn’t mean that we should forever worship it’s Shiva and Vishnu fight over benefiting or destroying us… Sure some good things happened to happen, but that’s FATE. So long as we leave it alone, we will have no determinate power to make it benefit us. It will do with us as it wills; but in fact, we are defying it by building houses and using medicine (“how dare we” would you say?). The power i’m speaking of that Man has is his power to turn all those dangers away, using nature only for his benefit (with no more destruction outside of his control).

@sapienite, Totally agreed, no way I would ever recommend man stepping back from nature and saying “This is not my department, I leave that to the gods, or God” that is completely irresponsible. We have a duty to master the universe, all the cause and effect “Fate” stuff and turn it to our will. The main point I would like to make in this process is about concept itself, this is a power potentially equal to that of the universe, because it is through concept that we discover how to master the universe, as much of it as we can. This is so we are not at the mercy of the dynamic fury the universe holds. The thing about concept is we have to master it before we can really use it to master the universe. All these unsavoury aspects of humanity are due to our misappropriation of concept. I mean things like greed, hate, malice, all the deadly sins, deflection of liability, denial of duty, you know not doing our job then blaming someone or something else. I actually believe there is likely to be appropriate uses for these terrible abuses we have, just we are way off the mark and it is so difficult for most people to have the discipline to focus these things in the way they were meant to be. For example: when something is out of your power, it is appropriate to deflect liability in accountability to the power you actually have on the issue, no use blaming yourself, or being blamed for something you do not have the resources to deal with. I think when a lot of the other sins are used correctly they cease to be termed as those particular names any more. Eg: Greed is a type of ambition, the “bad” type but something like duty is a “good” type of ambition. Another thing about that point about selfless fish, that is a great explaination, they are not aware of the self so how can they be selfish. I was thinking in a totally different way. I have an opinion that has life, as in biological, has the unique factor of perception. Even a simple-cell life form can respond to certain stimulii which tells us that it has a measure of awareness, it then adapts to that stimulii and we get evolution. I have an idea that ego starts here at life, perception and adaption, it is not self-awareness but it is the first stages of the first stages of self awareness and that is simply awareness, awareness is ego. This explains things that we have been talking about, instinctive reactions, compulsion for propogation of the species, self-preservation, and I think this is the point you were making, I was just of on a tangent. So ego starts as awareness but by the time it gets to humans and our concept it becomes self-awareness, the evolutionary next step for ego, and that is where the jerk and genius aspects of humanity come in, but our original ego, the natural awareness is still there underneath the new super ego, and often gets lost. (but what I meant before is that I think we are actually making the same points, just in a different way. Each our command of language is unique and a specific meaning to one person takes on another meaning to another person. That is the flaw of language and our command of it)

@sapienite, I really admire your power of philosophical thinking. I also agree with a few of your points. Although I would “humbly” recommend that next time you follow the structure of a dissertation, because your text is a bit confusing.

Points I have to disagree:

– Animals are not selfish;

I think animals are even more selfish than humans, because their incapacity of rational thinking drive them mostly through the selfish feelings of hunger, self protection and fear. Notice that humans also feel those instinctive emotions and it’s not because those are felt by an irrational creature, they would not then be selfish feelings.

Animals also benefit the species that benefit their specie, such as domestic animals towards humans… Dogs protect us and give us company, because we feed them and give them shelter.

Tigers and bears would kill a human just for the sake of killing. They are aware that other species could compromise the growth of their own, disputing space and food, so they kill what comes on the way.

Humans are aware that the power of rational thinking give us advantage upon other species, which make us invulnerable to their threat to our specie. So we learned to admire our irrational co-inhabitants and even work for their surviving in our planet. This can be a total selfless matter: ask a donation to the case “save the tigers”, and even knowing these are human assassin creatures, many people will donate this money because they want those creatures to survive… no self benefit on it.

– “Calculating” selfish and selfless;

What kind of rational idea brings you to selfish is 1 and selfless is 0? Then judge those as creating positive and negatives: what creates positives and negatives are actions, so I can make a total different equation, for example:

“Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also”.

“Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”

“We who are many are one body because we all share one bread, one cup.”

So I definitely don’t see the selfish in Christianity. I think while Buddhism and Taoism teaches people to detachment of material and concentration on your own soul, Christianity teaches you to love and respect one another, to earn your material with honesty, stay humble, and focus on the outside and helping people in need… much more humane and selfless than other religions.

So in conclusion, I definitely do not agree that selfish is the way to go. Selfish is easy… [b]Selfless takes much more from being a human, a rational thinker, a superior soul, a bright person. [/b]

@trek79, 1) I agree that our terminology is different, but we speak of the same thematic concepts. I accumulated my particular terminology out of philosophical study (excluding the modern era nihilists) and out of changing certain words to fit their essential themes (i speak essentially). 2) I think you have one word for “concept”, but i have as the example above “themes”, as well as Truth, Knowledge, the Understanding, and Wisdom. In Understanding our world, we must take in every bit of it, even the bad; we must accept everything and in so doing gain Knowledge, which is always on its way to attaining Absolute Truth. It is through Essence, or Themes that we get a glimpse of Absolute Truth, and can then expand our Knowledge. Now Wisdom is the USE of Knowledge: it is when we go out into the world and Actualize our Ideals, or act in accordance with Reason. I would recommend reading some epistemological philosophy to embolden ‘concept’, you indeed understand the Wisdom of it. 3) What you said about using concept to master the Universe: we must Understand the Universe (with Knowledge), so that we may then Over-stand it (with Wisdom). We learn by inquiry, or Reasoning, and we act for a Reason. Rationality and the Dialectic are very important to the process. 4) The only thing i’d ever get a sort of sense in duty from is Absolute Truth: spreading and using it. Through the orchestration of my Soul between Passionate Spirit and Rational Mind, I become Virtuous. As Virtuous, I am at Peace. It is for a Reason though, so it is not quite a duty as they come. 5) Duty is often bad, because people have many duties that they put themselves to do without real reason for doing them. All evil is rooted in ignorance, apathy, and nihilism. “faith”, for one, is absolutely opposed to Reason; it skips Reason and goes straight on into assumption (that is evil, and no matter its consequences, it is destructive to the Soul, for it fosters ignorance and apathy). 6) Yes, self-awareness starts with awareness, and we cannot be self-aware without having awareness; we must keep our foundation or lose our footing in reality, lose our life entirely. The “Soul” was always possible, it just had to be complete, and its potential structure is complete in Man. 7) I have heard essences of Freud, Taoism, and stoicism in your responses. Those are all particular philosophies of particularly nihilistic tones. Even still, you understand Man’s power and potential; for that, you took a lucky turn. But i recommend an understanding of Man’s Soul: Rational Mind and Creative Spirit.

@prittii, 1) The text i first posted is taken out of the context of my book. I admit that some parts have an odd speaking pattern, but I try to capture the essence rather than the mere substance of thought. 2) What i mean by saying animals are not selfish, is not that they don’t act out of self-preservation; they are forced to do so by pleasure and pain, which demand their reactions. 3) On account of bears, i had noted in one of my responses that predators had more advanced mental capacities, because they’re capable of being proactive in order to catch pray and keep territory. They are still, however, unable to rule nature itself, because they are still adapting to circumstance. 4) There IS a self-benefit in preserving certain species. For one, those who fight to preserve them often have an interest in them that is purely zoological: now if they were in a tribe that is constantly being attacked by a strong predator, they will not care about the preservation of them as a whole, and simply kill whichever ones they could to them preserve themselves. Once they are no more threat to our society, they become interesting oddities, like pets, that serve us to entertain us (still selfish). 5) Society is made up of individuals, there’s no other way. Society’s PURPOSE is to provide for individuals; it is a selfish purpose. The economy, for instance, was formed so that more resources and items could be taken by those who did not have all the means and time to make them on their own. Alienated labor occurred, the system needed currency, etc. Love, the proper foundation of society, is what i’ve been trying to explain above, because Love is an “additive” notion, it adds selves together into one collective self, which is society. Truly, they must set themselves as standard and only then act to the good of those others to which they SHOULD Love. If a society has no Love in it, like almost all today, then it doesn’t deserve to exist: there is no Reason to continue being blindly altruistic. 6) I meant by Christians feeling important that they, unlike the nihilists, want to pass on their selflessness and “love everyone”, but they are not Truly Loving everyone, because they do not even know everyone. This altruistic “love” of everyone is irrational, indifferent (not passionately genuine), and cancerous to True Love. I did no say they’re selfish, i said they’re proudly selfLESS. Really, they’re just hypocrites who say they love everyone indiscriminately, and in doing so ungenuinely, they are all, IN FACT, without genuine feeling or thought. All the while they are ignorantly apathetic, while ASSUMING they’re the opposite. 7) You attacking the common term of “Selfish”, which is not the one i speak of. I speak of the Individual and the Soul as ideally selfish. Find the essence of the theme.

Selfless – Adjective: Concerned more with the needs and wishes of others than with one’s own; unselfish. Synonyms: unselfish – disinterested – altruistic

Now I kindly ask you, for the sake of the conversation, for you to explain those three words in your personal context, otherwise I just cannot understand your thought or discuss with you about it.

2. Saying that there is a self-benefit in saving other species, is the same as saying there is self-benefit in donating your money to the poor. So in this case there is self-benefit in every action… so there is no action of selflessness.

3. Nihilism is the most useless part of philosophy. (Personally, I despise grumpy misogynist Nietzsche) There is no personal growth in a theory that says killing another person is not actually wrong, because there is no wrong.

It just takes humanity to notice what is right and wrong. Once you kill someone, you are causing an urgent damage in the society and that’s a very strong proof that it’s wrong.

If the love shared by the Christians is fake or not, a Christian honest and kind citizen is much more useful for a society, than a hedonist and selfish nihilist.

1) My intent on posting here was not to explain my Philosophy as much as to test its parts separately. You could not intently understand it all without going through the book. I could not introduce my terms in the beginning because, at the beginning, i had no terms of my own. It is through Philosophizing and discovering that those terms found Truer meaning. I posted here on this informal site to see how people would react to whatever theme they could get out of it. Plenty have gotten some good themes, so i say my purpose has been met. 2) Those who compile dictionaries are not Philosophers; if they were, then finding Truth would simply be a matter of looking up definitions. 3) A selfless action is one done for its own sake (for no real reason): duty, faith, altruism, etc. To be an altruist is to do “good” for everyone without discerning values – without HAVING values. In donating your money to the poor, i have a few questions: what is money? Why and how are they poor? You say society so frivolously; why does it deserve such praise? Society is really just an interaction of subjects, not even just people, but resources and all sorts of existing material substance. Surely, if there is a right and wrong to altruism, then you should know what’s right and wrong even between water and rocks, or rocks and bears: should the rock let the bear use it to smash the fish’s skull in (oh wait! what about the fish!). Really, you can’t settle for “good-in-itself” as the answer, you have to actual Reason and work to find it; and by that i mean you have to have a Reason for every action, a Reason that you yourself understand fully, like building a house to withstand the storm or crafting a spear to kill scavengers with (once you get to national societies with their norms and laws, it gets complicated). My advice is to understand the difference between countries and societies: “good for society” doesn’t make sense, “good for country” is different, because it is defined and has a general structure that must be present, giving it a morality. 4) Nietzsche was not a nihilist; he knew that altruism, proliferated by the slave-moralities, was evil. In realizing that and knowing the whole world is filled with people who have “duties” and “morals”, he knew he had to set out a revaluation of all values; starting, for the most part, with the Virtuous master-moralities of the Gentiles. I will not go into depth with it, but i will give a hint: whether killing is good or not depends on who’s killing who for what reasons (everything depends on everything: you have to put more thought into it). There are plenty of people who don’t deserve to live, primarily because they don’t even value life in the first place. Nietzsche is not a nihilist, he believed in the empowerment and potential of the Soul (or Individual). By nihilist i mean: Schopenhauer, Buddha, Taoism, Religion, Judaism, Kierkegaard, stoicism, Sartre, the Existentialists, etc: they’re all anti-existence, anti-life, pessimistic, anti-man, slavish, faithful, pro-nothingness, etc. They’re all part of one perfect evil. 5) To all of your definitions that you hold so dear from your dictionary, i ask what they really mean. What is duty? What is society? What is nihilism? What is the good? What is selfishness? What is selflessness? What is money? What is poorness? etc etc etc. You are no Philosopher, you are a sophist who assumes too much; sure, you can speak and be understood by the majority, because the majority is also without essential meaning. Seek to answer those questions and you will understand me.

@sapienite, Yes, I admit I have a background in Nihilism but I always appliy Nihilism only to concept not to the natural purpose and qualities that the universe always displays. Humans in my opinion have this natural purpose and qualities but the addition of concept, which is for enhancing those purposes and qualities, often confuses or over-rides those natural inclination. I do understand sub-genres of concept but I have a minimalistic style, I stick to generalization. For example: I don’t believe truth is always the highest principle. Truth can often be destructive, especially considering how most people are seriously inept in understanding the role of concepts, or they have not discovered certain trails of insight as yet. To me there are often situations where the truth is more destructive and less vital to a situation. Love is something I generalize again, if you go back I haven’t mentioned it by name once but in a generalized sense I have mentioned it numerous times. Love to me is what causes constructive behaviour, I am even willing to entertain that love is not only the cause but the purpose. Most people think of love only on the human emotional level but I can certainly see that the description fits or corresponds to the fundamentals of the Yin/Yang universe, I only don’t use it for its connotation. In a lot of Nihilistic disciplines, desolving attachment, rigid concept, is the ultimate goal, but in my case Nihilism was just a new beginning. I had a philosophical and moral structure that created an impass for growth in understanding, built from what I had been conditioned to over my life, and disolving that gave me a clean slate to begin organizing logically and by what makes sense to me in a far more objective method, the duality. Wisdom and understanding are pure but truth is subjective and knowledge can overwhelm the natural purpose and qualities, they both always needs wise judgement in their best application.

Cause, Reason, Purpose; all are under the same totality. The Truth is found in everything AS everything: existence is everything. I can’t follow your logic, probably because it’s already established and you believe in it. It is to peculiar and particular; it has within itself a thousand antitheses unresolved. Resolve those by synthesis and you will eventually have a Universal Knowledge, one that is only opposed to the very particularity and singularity started with the thesis, or against the very opposite of Existence itself, which is nothingness (nihilism). You’re not wrong, you’re just not done synthesizing yet; but if you have no intent of synthesizing your beliefs with mine, then it is just a pointless confrontation of two immovable theses – argumentation without resolve. I have added your considerations to my Understanding best as i can, but i’m just not understanding some of it.

@sapienite, Cause aligned with the original purpose, but there is plenty of cause not aligned with it, and that is all due to human misappropriation of concept. Objective reason is aligned but there is plenty of reasoning that is not objective. In your definitions you have only the pure objective meanings, I am just saying a lot of the words you use have more to them than just their objective meaning. Love itself is probably one of the broadest possible words in language, next to “Fuck” and “God” and I have seen obsessive incarnations of love that are destructive but remain in the spirit of the broad definition. Euros is another word that is strictly sexual but it is defined as love. I am not sure what you mean by unresolved antithesis, but I do not see where our conclusion have not synthesised, we only have a different method of communicating it and different specific definitions of terminology.

As established, there are two worlds of cause and effect. There is the “Fate” world of nature, everything that exists despite man. Then there is human cause and effect, concepts are created by us and the conclusions motivate actions in the spirit of those conclusions, with the intention of the action fulfilling a purpose in line with those conclusions. The Purpose of the “Fate” world is a goal toward the most productive ends of the universe, what is the most productive end of the universe is well beyond my knowledge or authority to judge. But the thing is that this process has resulted in us. Are we a huge factor in that end or are we a side-effect? That again is not my field. What I do know is we have the power to use many of those aspects of the “Fate” world to our advantage, and the power to stop those aspects from effecting us in a counter-productive way. The thing is that with this power we may not know if it is relevant to the best ends of the universe but we can use the power (of concept) to our best ends. Such best humans ends are things like living peacefully with each other and the planet and providing what we all need for the most deserved quality of life for each of us while existing in a sustainable manner with the planet. This is stuff like renewable energy, products that are relatively inexhaustable but have uses in making lives easier and/or pleasurable. The contributions of people are needed and people want stuff so it is a fair trade to have people contribute and in exchange they get those things they want. Society can automate a hell of a lot of things and this can leave people free to engage their passions in life. The problem with a maximum automation society is that the middle class, infact the whole financial system will crumble. The best idea is for people to be able to indulge a number of sustainable passions and recreations and in return they can do a type of labour service for a brief time in their life, kind of like National service for the army. This is because no matter how much we automate the world, there will remain jobs people need to do for it all to continue functioning. Doing such service should then open up a range of options that are not available to you if you refuse to do this service. We only really need to figure out what we can automate and what we can sustain. As for all the other problems with society, such as behaviour, all problems are due to misappropriation of concept but it is each of our choice to introspect, to get the most insight and wisdom we can and apply ourselves to constructive action, but it is not a crime to not do that, crime is just being harmful to others or harmful to yourself in such a way that makes you a burden on others. Ultimately we are all in a situation where we all support people who are irresponsible or have no duty to anything but their profit margin. We do this because they provide something we do not want to, or cannot, get by without. The only real option is for each of us to decide to find an alternative or go without until those who are irresponsible either change or can no longer continue what they are doing. All the philosophy in the world is ultimately irrelevant to all these on-the-ground facts of life.

The first cause was not a purpose, it is the last cause that is purpose, that purpose which we hold within ourselves to fulfill the Potential of the first. If communication is off, Philosophizing is off, and so agreement is impossible. My best word for your ‘concept’ is ‘Ideal’. The natural world of fate you say is what I call the Universe’s untapped Potential. The human cause is the Ideal (your concept), and it always seeks to Actualize itself within the world. You must realize that the ultimate reality is not in concept, but in Actuality, or in the Actualization observed by causes and effects. Thus, if our Ideals (concept) is to have any value, we must Actualize our Ideals, not by bringing them into Being (because only concepts or ideas just ARE), but by having them BECOME. The most productive “end” is one that does not end, one that is Infinitely Ideal, or Perfection itself. A True Philosopher is polymathic, they never exclaim “that’s not my field”. They question everything and seek all answers. Because everything is interconnected by causation, and conception rises out of the observation of actual causes and effects (which is Universal Causation), there are no borderlines, and there is no end. Excluding your studies to one separate teachings will always make you capitalize something over all else, though you have not sought to Understand All at Once: that Understanding is Universal Knowledge, and it is always becoming Absolute Truth – for that, it IS Absolute Truth, just as to be Perfect is to be PerfectIVE. Your economic or political ideas are incomplete: you have not sought to understand the FOUNDATION of society, the economy, or the government. All modern sophist political scientists jump into the debate like this, no different than politicians. They take the system as it is and think they can perfect it from there, but they will always fail, because they have not sought the True Causes and Essences of it All. The whole financial system would crumble because it was created in a failing society that did not look to its foundations. Financial systems, as they are, are thus their own fallacy. If there were no financial systems, such as banks and insurance institutes, which work only for money, then the system would lose its complication, and people would start to recognize why they set it up in the first place: not for money-in-itself but for wealth-in-itself (the power to act as you will).

@sapienite, I can tell you that your view is too complex, if I don’t get it few will, and if few get it what is the point? To tickle your ego and look down on all us dumbasses? You want to help people, simplify and communicate in how they can understand but still ultimately you are going to have to accept at some point that few people are actually going to be interested, no matter how logical or obvious your points are. I am actually paying more attention to you and your ideas than most people will in your entire life. And of course what I said on the economic system is incomplete, it is 3 paragraphs.

I must realize that the ultimate reality is not concept? Have you been reading what I wrote? That is the primary point of my philosophy; people assume a “conceptual identity” that their concept of themselves and the world is all they are, but I am saying the universe existed before concept ever existed. I say that concept is a tool for improving things but it is misused, mainly by seeing it as more than a tool. Things that are not my field are usually things that are irrelevant, such as the ends of the universe. And by ends I don’t mean THE end I mean something more along the lines of stabilization, purity, harmony.

Honestly dude, you accuse me of being rigid and set in my beliefs, that I am uncompromising and my methods of interpretation of knowledge are off, if you have all the answers then why are you frustrated and every post you make you throw in a suggestion of superiority. I have started to discuss these issues for two reasons: 1) To show you some of my ideas and 2) To better understand yours. I will agree with what you say on a number of issue then show you alternate ways that I see things on ohter issues, you will criticize and belittle any objection to your gospil. I never claim to be right, most of what I say is only my opinion, and I am always open to be convinced of new ideas, but you are not. But I suppose if you have it all figured out then of course you will not be open to new ideas, perhaps your perfect system has a flaw after all.

But a few things I have realized from this discussion: The purpose of the universe is irrelevant, the purpose of humanity is. The purpose of humanity is to improve life for all, and while doing this we have to find that balance with the planet and nature. Improving life includes overcoming dynamic natural factors that threaten a better situation for humans. As far as human behaviour goes, no behaviour is wrong unless it harms others or harms the self so that one becomes dependant on others, a burden. Ideally we would introspect and find a wisdom and a discipline to motivate ourselves to actualize in the spirit of that wisdom. However, that step is not nessecary, all a person really should do is find passion for life, do the best they can at what they are good at and be relatively as self-sufficient as they can (as far as being part of an interdependant society goes) but being wise and humble enough to accept help in the areas they are weak. As others help you where you are weak it is only natural to help others where they are weak and you are strong, this is all part of the improving life for people purpose. Mostly all a person needs to know in this is to try not to harm others, if only because you benefit from the increased chance that others will not try to make your life more difficult in retaliation for your inconsiderate behaviour. To be selfish is key, nothing should be motivated by selflessness and every seemingly selfless behaviour that I have just mentioned actually has a selfish motive. Helping others so that others help you. Not harming others so that others do not harm you. Make life as easy as you can for others, without sacrificing too much of the ease of your own life, so that others extend the same courtesy. That is simple ideas that people can understand but still, most people either already know this and so will ignore it, or they are too apathetic to even read it in the first place. A person has to accept at some point, the facts of humanity.

@sapienite, I will just explain what I mean by concept. Yes we take in information and it becomes knowledge. We rationalize the best uses for that and apply it. But conceptualizing is the method of application that we have designed, the act of turning knowledge into a use. There is the best way but there are also often many right ways besides this best way and there are ineffective and/or dangerous ways to turn knowledge into an applicable concept. A point you made about duty, I don’t think it is ever bad, it is how the sense of duty in people is manipulated toward the wrong goal that is wrong. Duty is a noble characteristic, that so many people have it but are not equipped with directing correctly, or they are but have no confidence in their own judgement, or they sell out their control of it. About purpose: Yes, I see now what you mean, purpose is not the begining, it is the goal. Cause is the begining, but what motivated cause? Perhaps a sense of the goal? When you say that I suggest cause was intentional, well cause has had a result, you cannot argue that, but how could cause come into existence without motivation and if nothing motivated it to come into existence then what was stopping it? The only answer is a cause chain reaction has always been bouncing around the universe but that means infinite and infinite is paradoxical. But paradox is really only a conceptual impass, it only exists because we don’t understand it, otherwise a paradox is completely normal. So if the universe is based on paradox then everything we dismiss as wrong may well be right, we only dismiss it because it is a contradiction toward a favoured view.